


Love You All The Way Down

by fridaysblues (taemin)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-03-11 12:17:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3326960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taemin/pseuds/fridaysblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minseok's been so busy watching Lu Han that he hasn't noticed that Lu Han's been watching right back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love You All The Way Down

Jongdae insists on throwing the party at the house he's renting with Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo. This is only the third time they've hosted a party at their place since they signed the lease back in July, and Kyungsoo's still nervous after the last time, when the cops showed up at two in the morning to tell them to turn the karaoke machine down. His protests are summarily rejected by a steamrolling Baekhyun, who seems delighted at the prospect of getting an honest-to-god Christmas tree in their tiny living room.

Chanyeol's similarly enthusiastic. "Ugly sweater party!" he crows as he types up the Facebook invitation from one of the department computers in the drafting lab. Minseok puts his head down and tries to focus on the blueprint he's grading but it's hard to ignore the conversation when the four of them all talk to each other like they're on opposite sides of a battlefield.

"You should probably do this where I can't hear you," he announces after Jongdae starts talking about multiple kegs and _where's the best place to procure a case of rum, you know, just in case—_

Baekhyun scoffs, legs swinging crazily from the drafting table he's been sitting on. "Come on, hyung, lighten up. You're not a professor—"

"I'm a teacher."

"Teaching _assistant_ , and you're not _my_ teacher, anyway." Baekhyun grins like he's a genius for discovering this loophole. "I'm not even in the architecture program. Don't worry about it."

"You hang around here so much I'm convinced you're going to end up switching majors," Minseok shoots back. "Don't you have choir practice to go to or something?"

"End of the semester concert was last weekend, hyung. I've got this period free now."

Kyungsoo shakes his head and pipes up to remind them of the last time they hosted a party. "If someone ends up in my bed again, I swear to God, I'm killing you all in your sleep."

"You should come too, hyung," Jongdae says, eyeing Minseok with a mischievous glint in his eye. "I just sent you a text with all the information. I invited the entire engineering department, too." As if on cue, Minseok's phone vibrates.

"Oh." Minseok stares blankly at the text on his phone.

_December 24th!!!!!!!!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ 8PM Sharp!!!!!!!!!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ Bring booze!!!!!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧_ Jongdae uses emoticons far too often. Exclamation points, too.

"Uh. I don't even really celebrate Christmas," he says finally. Jongdae scoffs.

"Like that matters. None of us do, really, we're just the leftovers on campus. Baekhyun's sticking around to get a few extra rehearsals with his accompanist. Chanyeol blew up his entire project by accident—yeah, that chem lab explosion was him." Chanyeol grins sheepishly and lowers his eyes to the floor. Minseok shakes his head, feels the start of a headache prickling at his temples. "He's got to have _something_ to show the professor when term starts again in January. Kyungsoo—"

Minseok holds up a hand. "Jongdae. Enough. You're saying all these things and not one of them is a good reason to have a Christmas party."

"It's Christmas. That's the reason!" Jongdae rolls his eyes. "Just come in your ugliest sweater. And don't tell me you don't own one, hyung—I've seen what you wear when it's your turn to lead discussions in class."

Minseok looks down at his sweater vest and frowns. "Hey. This is how professionals dress. You can't wear sweatshirts for the rest of your life."

"Watch me," Jongdae warns, grinning sunnily. "Just—don't do that thing with your hair you always do when you're trying to be cool. Lu Han won't like that."

"What are you talking about? I don't do a _thing_ with my hair—get _out_ , all of you," he bursts crossly as Chanyeol fails to hide a snigger behind his palm.

Of course, Minseok's crush on the electrical engineering TA is the worst kept secret at SNU. Lu Han, some bright-eyed Chinese national here to study on what seems like a permanent student visa. _Why here,_ everybody asks him. _"I really like your pop music_ ," he replies in crisp, perfectly pronounced Korean, laughing (he's always laughing). He's said it enough times at this point that Minseok is ninety percent sure he's not entirely kidding.

But that's not why Minseok likes him.

Minseok likes the way Lu Han's lips curl downward together in a perfect chevron when he's concentrating on his work. He likes the unconscious things, the way he taps the eraser of his pencil against his cheek when he's thinking, the persistent jiggle of his heel like a child who can't sit still. And even though he does it to everyone, Minseok always feels special when Lu Han reaches out to hold his hand, slotting his fingers through Minseok's to squeeze their palms flush (he doesn't even mind that Minseok's perpetually sweaty, a combination of nerves and a glandular thing he was diagnosed with back in high school—nobody's ever liked holding Minseok's hands before. Too clammy). He likes that his hair is always a different color, likes that he eschews the department's regulations for teaching assistant attire in favor of t-shirts splashed with comic book characters, a revolving door of hats that seem to come and go without much repetition. Doesn't matter what he wears, really: Lu Han'd probably look good in a garbage bag. He's that attractive.

_Jongdae's right. Lu Han probably would hate the hair thing,_ Minseok thinks ruefully, flattening his bangs against his forehead.

_OK,_ he texts Jongdae. _I'll come._

❄❄❄

Minseok arrives promptly at a quarter to nine, aiming for the fashionably late route but mostly hoping everyone would be there and wouldn't notice him slipping in. He looks down at his sweater and groans at the garish red-nosed reindeer careening across his chest. Nobody told him graduate school was going to be full of these sorts of indignities or he probably would have opted for a quieter career path. Working at a PC-bang, maybe. He's good with computers.

Baekhyun answers the door, Santa hat perched at a jaunty angle on his head. "Minseok-hyung's here! Hey guys! He actually showed up!" he calls over his shoulder.

Minseok closes his eyes. It takes every ounce of willpower not to run screaming into the night. Instead, he opens them and places the bottle of creme de menthe in Baekhyun's outstretched hands. "Here. For hot chocolate."

"Hyung!" Baekhyun gushes, eyes wide with glee. "Did I ever tell you that you're my _favorite_ —"

"I was never here."

"I know. Nobody was ever here, that's the deal." Baekhyun grins, that impish one where you could count all of his teeth if he stayed still long enough to let you. "We told you not to worry about it. You're not even the first teaching assistant here. Look!"

Minseok's in good company, apparently. He peers over Baekhyun's shoulder at the rest of the crowd gathered in the living room. He recognizes Zhang Yixing, Baekhyun's composition and theory TA, over in the corner at Baekhyun's crappy Yamaha practice keyboard. He's sitting, back hunched over the speakers to listen to the keyboard's pre-recorded backing tracks with a stupid grin on his face. Wu Yifan's sitting next to him on the bench, trying fruitlessly to rap over a synth arrangement of _Stille Nacht_ Yixing's just selected.

A little further, he sees Kim Joonmyun standing in a doorway. Joonmyun's another member of Minseok's department—Minseok teaches the undergraduate industrial design and urban planning class, Joonmyun's more comfortable with drafting and design, wants to build beautiful homes for a lot of wealthy people as soon as he gets his degree and a spot at a decent firm. He's on his way, though. He'll do well.

Just then, Minseok sees who Joonmyun's talking to and his throat closes up. Lu Han's here. The crows feet around Lu Han's eyes deepen into a smile when Joonmyun leans in and whispers something in his ear. Minseok feels ill.

"Hyung! You came!" Chanyeol's baritone carries over the noise all the way from the kitchen. Minseok pivots away from the living room, kicks off his shoes into the pile already heaped by the door. He waves a brief hello to Joonmyun, who smiles at him over the line of Lu Han's shoulder. Lu Han turns and his face lights up.

"Oh, Minseok, you came!" he says. Minseok nods, notices the odd curiosity in Joonmyun's face, and makes a vague gesture towards the kitchen.

"I'll—be back—Chanyeol—yeah. Merry Christmas," he says lamely, and escapes.

❄❄❄

Baekhyun's in rare form tonight. He takes shots of spiced rum and keeps _ho, ho, ho!_ ing when there's a lull in conversation. He even pats his lap at one point and invites people to come tell Santa what they want for Christmas. Nobody takes him up on the offer so he drags an unsuspecting freshman onto his knees instead— Kim Jongin, one of Yixing's friends from the morning dance classes he takes at the gym ("He's mature for his age," Yixing assures Minseok when he hears Jongin's still 19. Minseok closes his eyes and contemplates the possibility of being fired from his assistantship for drinking with underclassmen). Jongin goes silent and wide-eyed for a moment, clearly shocked, before he hides his giggles behind the wrist of his bulky red and blue Fair Isle sweater.

"Baekhyun, behave yourself," Kyungsoo warns, shooing Yifan off the piano bench to take a seat next to Yixing.

"Don't I always?" Baekhyun beams, obviously pleased. "Look, it's no problem with me if someone's on the naughty list—"

Minseok chokes into his drink, splashing cider down the front of his sweater. "Jesus," he mutters, holding the mug away from his body to survey the damage. In a flash there are a pair of slender, pale hands dabbing at the mess on his chest with a napkin. Lu Han. Minseok looks up and smiles awkwardly. "Thanks. I've—I've got it."

"Let me get you a fresh one."

"No, it's okay—"

"This one's cold and you're wearing half of it anyway," Lu Han chides, releasing the napkin into Minseok's startled fingers. "Be right back."

Across the room, Baekhyun wiggles his eyebrows. Minseok refuses to catch his gaze again, cheeks burning.

Lu Han returns with two drinks and a fistful of paper towel he'd stolen from the dispenser. "Here. Don't spill this one," he teases. "I was wondering where you disappeared to. You never came and said hi when you arrived."

"I did," Minseok protests. "I waved."

"That's not the same thing."

"You were in the middle of a conversation." Minseok buries his face in the plume of steam curling up from his mug. "Didn't want to interrupt."

Lu Han squints, obviously lost in thought before he remembers and snorts. "Oh. Joonmyun. He was asking me when you were getting here."

Minseok splutters again. Lu Han's there, holding out the paper towel. "Why would he ask you?" Minseok asks, mopping at himself fruitlessly. He feels like an idiot right now—can't even get a drink from a cup into his mouth without making a mess. _I am an adult,_ he reminds himself.

If Lu Han's disgusted, he doesn't show it. "I guess he always sees me bugging you at school and figured I'd know." He shrugs, looks across the room at the keyboard. Yixing's playing Christmas carols out of a book and Kyungsoo's singing along from his seat perched on the arm of the couch, eyes closed, concentrating. He's got a nice voice.

Minseok listens intently for a few bars before he notices someone's humming along, harmonizing—it's _Lu Han_. "I didn't know you could sing."

Lu Han smiles behind his hand, embarrassed. "There are a lot of things you don't know," he says.

"I should know these things, though," Minseok insists.

"Alright." Lu Han laughs. "All you have to do is ask, Minseok. I didn't think you were that interested."

Minseok feels a little crushed when he hears this. "No, no," he assures Lu Han quickly. "I'm very interested." He flushes scarlet. "I mean—I'm interested in you. I mean—wait. I'm—"

Lu Han guffaws. "Minseok. It's okay," he says quietly, breath hot and moist on the skin of Minseok's neck. "Me too."

❄❄❄

It's around his third mug of steaming hot cider that Minseok suspects Chanyeol may have spiked the punch bowl. It's the only logical explanation for why he's standing under a sprig of mistletoe in the foyer with—Lu Han's hands cupping his face?

"Wait," Minseok pants, hand splayed against the narrow buckle of Lu Han's ribs just as Lu Han's swooping in to attach his mouth to the lobe of Minseok's ear. Lu Han halts obediently, blinks his eyes uncrossed.

"You need some air?"

"I—yeah, that'd be good, I think." Heat waves are rolling through him, cresting from his toes to his shoulders. He's starting to feel a little woozy and he's not sure if it's this stupid fucking sweater Jongdae told him to wear, or the proximity of his hands to Lu Han's belt, but he's just. Overwhelmed. "It's a little stuffy in here."

"You bet." Lu Han smiles and holds the door open. "Come on."

Minseok squints suspiciously at the faces leering back at him from down the hall. "Chanyeol, did you—?" he starts, before Lu Han's tugging him across the onto the front porch, still laughing, a warm arm snaking around his waist.

The December air snaps at Minseok's cheeks. It's freezing, but he's still burning up. He holds his hands up to his cheeks to cover the flush from the alcohol.

"Don't," Lu Han says softly, his long fingers wrapping around Minseok's wrist. "It's cute."

Minseok peers owlishly at the ski jump of Lu Han's nose, the Cupid's bow of his lips. He's never actually been this close to Lu Han before, and now—

The corners of Lu Han's lips twitch into a smile. "What are you staring at? Something on my face?"

"No. Your face is perf—uh." Minseok clears his throat. "It's fine, I mean."

Minseok loves the way Lu Han laughs. It's effervescent, helpless—cascades from on high, takes over his entire body in shuddering gasps, like the chatter of water on sharp rocks, a thousand marbles dropped down a staircase. It's contagious, too, when he leans back and holds onto Minseok for dear life like Minseok's the only thing keeping him upright.

"No. Really," Lu Han insists once he's calmed down enough to articulate words. "I like you too, Minseok."

Minseok swallows hard. He barely recognizes his own voice, only realizes he's speaking when he sees the white puffs of air drift past his nose and disappear. "Come home with me," he says, and doesn't have time to regret it before Lu Han's nodding against his forehead, mouth _so close_ , hovering.

❄❄❄

Minseok doesn't remember much about getting home. He only realizes he'd put on two different shoes when he stumbles across the threshold of his apartment, sees the bright red laces and laughs into Lu Han's chest.

"Fuck, I recognize these. They're Baekhyun's—"

Lu Han shuts the front door behind them with a hip-check. "Call him tomorrow," he instructs, untucking Minseok's undershirt from his jeans. His fingertips are icy against the close warmth of skin. Minseok holds them closer, frowning.

"Your hands."

"It's cold outside." Lu Han looks around awkwardly and Minseok realizes this is one of the first times they've ever really hung out away from the engineering department cafeteria. Minseok hadn't expected to have visitors—tonight or ever, really—so the couch was piled high with textbooks, exams he was in the middle of grading, a half-eaten bag of shrimp chips.

"Come in," Minseok says. "I mean—I'm sorry, it's trashed in here, but—"

"No, no," Lu Han assures him quickly. "My place is—I can see your carpet." He laughs again, eyes crinkling. "I was just surprised at how clean you keep your apartment." Lu Han's fingers settle against the flat expanse of Minseok's lower back to reel him in, bodies close. "Stop worrying so much."

Minseok kisses him then, suddenly bold behind closed doors. They bump noses, lips smooth and slack against each other. Minseok doesn't quite know what to do with his hands—isn't sure if he can put them back on Lu Han's belt yet, if that's going too fast, so he settles for curling his hands around Lu Han's jaw, traces the outline of his face, memorizing it with his fingerprints.

Lu Han chuckles, breaks the kiss long enough to ask, "So. What do you want to know?"

Minseok blanks for a moment before he recognizes the callback to their previous conversation. "I—uh. Are you okay?" he asks dumbly. "This. It's okay?"

Lu Han covers Minseok's hands with his own, leans into it. "That's really your question?" he murmurs. "You don't already know the answer to that one?"

The floor creaks under their socked feet as Minseok leads Lu Han past the couch and into the bedroom. There's a picture hanging on the wall that he stops to fix, jittery fingers adjusting the frame until the picture of his little sister at her high school graduation beams back at him, just as proud as the day he'd taken it. He hears Lu Han sigh around the corner and looks back into his sister's eyes, raises his fingers to his lips and pretends to cover her eyes with his other hand. The picture grins back in stony silence. He pauses in the doorframe, watches as Lu Han sinks down on the end of the bed, looking like he's coming home to a familiar place, not sitting on some stranger's bed. Lu Han runs his hands over the navy comforter and pats next to him.

"Come here."

Minseok's legs just won't obey, won't bend to let him sit. He's too nervous. He stands in between Lu Han's knees and rests his hand in Lu Han's hair. It's orange at the moment, and not nearly as soft under his touch as Minseok had always imagined. It feels stiff and dry, like straw. He gives up trying to run his fingers through it because he's pretty sure yanking out Lu Han's hair by the roots would be a pretty good way to end—whatever this is—before they even have a chance to get started. Lu Han tips his face, leaves a kiss in the crease of Minseok's palm before he tugs him down and rolls over to pin Minseok under his mouth.

Lu Han has Minseok laid out across the bedspread in no time flat, panting, ugly sweater twisted, his ankle hooked around Lu Han's calf pulling him closer. Lu Han sits back on his haunches and gives Minseok this sly look that sends a thrill sparking across his skin.

"You like me," Lu Han says. He looks smug, but the tone of his voice sounds more astonished than anything else. Minseok drapes his forearm over his eyes and groans through his teeth.

"I'm sorry."

"Why are you _sorry_? Didn't you—I mean—Joonmyun told me to play it cool, stop forcing you to hold hands with me. He said you didn't like it."

"No—that's not true, I—you can. I like it." He draws a deep breath. "But yeah, I do. I like you."

The apartment is quiet. Outside, the hushed sound of tires on snow, a car radio in the distance, playing, of all things, _Feliz Navidad_. This isn't how it had gone any of the dozens of times Minseok had dreamed about this moment—it was more frantic, more needy, more… something. This is better, though. He'd never imagined the silvery glow from the snowfall outside catching the glare from the street light, the way Lu Han's eyelashes cast long shadows down his cheeks, the nervous way he licks his lips blushed and swollen, hands steady and sure on Minseok's waist.

"I like you too," Lu Han whispers. "A lot." He skirts his hand back up Minseok's sweater, coaxes him into sitting up long enough to toss the sweater on the floor, then the undershirt. "Not in that sweater, though," he teases after a beat of just _staring_ at Minseok like he's the best thing he's ever seen.

Oh, yeah. This is definitely better. In his dreams they just sort of—end up naked, they never take their time to undress, layer by layer, like unwrapping a present (how apt that Christmas ends up being their first time, since Minseok feels like this is the best gift he's ever been given). He'd never imagined what it would feel like to struggle with the snap on Lu Han's jeans, laughing into his shoulder until Lu Han knocks his hand away to do it himself. The way Lu Han smells, too—warm, a little bit like clean laundry and soap—Minseok keeps stopping just to breathe it in, bury his nose in Lu Han's throat to try and remember this.

Lu Han pushes Minseok's legs up and away to free them from the pair of corduroy trousers Minseok had so carefully chosen to wear earlier that evening. They make a loud thud on the floor when he tosses them over his shoulder. He laughs, smothers it into the bare skin of Minseok's calf. "You look—really good like this, you know?" Lu Han murmurs, leveraging Minseok's ankles up even further, pushing his thighs up against his stomach, curling him in half.

Minseok gasps against the weight of his knees on his chest, and Lu Han, too—hands braced on Minseok's shins to lean down and lick slow, drawn out kisses into Minseok's open mouth. There's nothing separating them anymore but sweaty skin, a few inches of thigh muscle and bone.

"Can I?" Lu Han asks, hand trailing down the round of Minseok's ass to settle at the cleft. His hands are so warm, fingers delicate. Minseok nods at the bottle of lube on the side table and closes his eyes, exhales slowly and waits for that initial stinging burn. It doesn't come.

"Everything okay?" he asks, eyelids fluttering open after a moment. Lu Han's still leaning over him, fingers glistening with a little too much _KY_. His pupils are huge in the dark, eyes wide and searching Minseok's face.

"Yeah. You looked—I don't know, should I keep going?"

Minseok cranes his neck up to kiss Lu Han's collarbone, exposed teeth leaving faint red marks on the pale jut of bone. "Yes," he says, eyes shuttering again. "Please."

Lu Han seems mollified. He eases his hand back between Minseok's legs and sits back to shift his balance onto his heels. Minseok flinches, then breathes past Lu Han's finger until he feels his muscles relax and pull the reach of Lu Han's curved fingertips deeper.

There's a moment where Minseok feels _everything_ —Lu Han's hands and Lu Han's mouth on his thighs and Lu Han's breath tickling his skin and then suddenly it's all gone. He shivers with the cold and listens to the quiet, sticky snap of latex as Lu Han positions himself and asks for permission again with the blunt tip of his cock, another tentative kiss dropped on the round of Minseok's kneecap.

Minseok groans and lifts a leg into Lu Han's hand, lets him hook it over his shoulder. "Go on," he huffs. "In. Please."

"God that's hot," Lu Han pants, seating himself deep inside Minseok. "Oh—wow. God. Fuck." He breaks off into this unintelligible babbling, fingers scrambling to catch hold of the bedspread until Minseok laces their fingers together and rolls his hips back just enough that Lu Han has to chase him back to keep from falling out. Then it's just—Minseok kissing encouragement into the soft skin of Lu Han's forearm, Lu Han, sweaty and flushed, moaning every time he slides back inside Minseok like it's the one place he wants to be. There's no jackhammered pace, no frantic rush to the finish line—just Minseok and Lu Han, two bodies moving against each other in the dark.

Minseok comes first. He's been too fucking turned on this whole time to hold back and the friction against Lu Han's belly is just too much. Lu Han whimpers, feels the warmth pooling around his navel and buries himself to the hilt in Minseok. He trembles through his orgasm, fingers brushing the hair back from Minseok's forehead to kiss himself calm. His lips linger long after his body stops shaking, thumbs outlining the sharp line of Minseok's chin with slow, thoughtful strokes.

"I'm glad you came over," Minseok whispers, and instantly regrets it. _How fucking cheesy—_

Lu Ha laughs, rolls off the bed to dispose of the condom in the trash can by Minseok's desk. "Don't be cute," he warns. "I'll stay forever."

"Stay forever, then," Minseok says, challenging him. He holds up the side of the comforter and Lu Han's eyes brighten at the gesture.

"Really?"

Minseok smiles. "Get in. It's cold out there."

❄❄❄

**Author's Note:**

> part of my holiday advent ficlet series 2013. written for an anon and posted for dec 1st.


End file.
